Topics

1

CamBam help (General usage) / Creating solids FROM my outputs

« on: March 01, 2026, 20:04:19 pm »

I have a friend who owns 3D printing equipment.  He'd like to duplicate an art-form jewelry box in plastic that I did by subtractive machining in wood.

I don't know of a way to give him a solid model of what I've created, because I created it all in CamBam.  Is there a way to create a (I guess .dxf solid?) from the outputs of my g-code?  It's hollow, so there are both inside and outside profiles to consider.

Lloyd

2

Bug Reports / Roughing clearance perverted on inside profile of 3D surface

« on: January 21, 2026, 18:45:49 pm »

I just ran a roughing, then a finishing of the inside of an ovoid bowl using a 1/2" ball-nose cutter.  Upon finishing the surface, I notice that there were roughing artifacts (dimples) still left on the walls in a few places.  It appears that the roughing over-shot the actual surface boundary.

I did the roughing with 0.020" of roughing clearance, and the finishing with zero clearance.  Is this a bug?  Has anyone seen the problem before?

I can probably cure it by doubling my roughing clearance.  But why?

Lloyd

3

CamBam help (General usage) / SUPER SLOW refresh times on the CB site

« on: September 12, 2025, 21:52:13 pm »

David,
I've confirmed that isn't my connection.  All my other sites refresh instantly, and we have high-speed optical fiber service now.

But the CB site is refreshing very (VERY) slowly.  I've tried rebooting my browsers.  I've rebooted my computers (two).  Only this site seems affected.


Lloyd
 

4

CamBam help (General usage) / A transient anomaly I don't think I've ever seen before.

« on: September 07, 2025, 18:40:56 pm »

I was running a job today in 3/8" 6061 aluminum, cutting small 'sandwich' adapters to fit two tiny ratchet wrenches that are used as part of the incremental motions of a machine I'm refurbishing for a customer.

Everything was perfect until when I went to the very last MOp - cutting out the individual halves of each sandwich - then two of the four were perfect.  The other two (in the same MOp) began lifting ABOVE the clearance plane the same distance they should have gone below the stock surface AFTER beginning to cut the triangular holding tabs.  It didn't occur until the very tops of the tabs had been reached.

I immediately thought my mill had lost its mind.  But when I reviewed the g-code, it was doing exactly as commanded.

Understand, please, that these were not simply absent minus-signs:  It wasn't the distance above the stock surface it should have been below it -- it was above the clearance plane by the amount it should have been below the stock surface.

I did NOT change the CAM at all.  I simply regenerated the g-code, and the next time, the code was correct (reviewed before running!).

What?

Lloyd

5

CamBam help (General usage) / Whoa! NEAR Emergency!!!

« on: September 07, 2025, 11:30:03 am »

Because I purchased a license for CutViewer with CamBam, I have become comfortable with CutViewer, and I rely upon it.

Yesterday, out of the blue, it announced that my 30 day trial had ended, and it ceased to work!

I have migrated my software from XP to Windows 10, and to FOUR different physical platforms since I first purchased my license, so I had to do some searching to find my original license information and instructions.  Thank goodness, I found it (still actually on my CAM computer and backups). 

A few minutes later, CV was back to working.

But what in HE!! would cause it to suddenly just abandon a decade-old license?  There's no reason for the registry to have changed -- I do not allow any upgrades or software updates on that machine -- EVER.  It's purely static.  It's not even connected (or connectable) to any network unless I manually plug in a USB network adaptor.  My philosophy is that if it works properly, don't 'mess with it'.  And so far as I can tell, everything else is still working properly.  I did a registry scan afterwards, and couldn't find any corruption.

The license.dat file was still there in the system files, and was an exact copy of my old saved copy.  All I had to do was go through the registration process again.


Lloyd

6

Members Machines / Solved problem and a severe disappointment

« on: July 29, 2025, 17:55:46 pm »

I've had a problem on my newer 5x9 bed router for about seven months.  One or the other of the two Y-axis servo drivers will fault during a run.  Today, I spent an hour on the phone with the manufacturer, and they stepped me through a 'realignment' of the gantry in Y.  Since there are two y servos/screws, and two homing switches, if anything gets skew between the two, you get an over-current on the drivers as they attempt to maintain positions or accelerate.

I loosened all the gantry elements, homed twice, then secured the gantry again.  It worked fine.  About two hours later, it failed the same way.  But it occurred to me that I had done several 'home' operations during that time.  So this time, I repeated the exercise, only doing ONE home to accomplish the alignment, then never doing another.

I ran my exerciser routine for hours, and the current never increased a bit.  Then I did a home.  It jumped-up dramatically.  I did another, and it went past 100% allowable, and faulted.

I've been complaining for seven months that my home position was varying by up to 30-thousanths on EVERY homing.  They denied that could happen (Their switches 'never fail').  Now I have proof that the home switches are at fault.  When one triggers before it did that last time you did a home, the gantry ends up skewed in Y across X.

The disappointment is when I had a bad cable connection, I noticed that a Z-axis motion was 'occurring', logging the steps on the screen, but never moving the axis!  With SERVOS with true position encoders, they're still using 'open-loop' positioning!  They send the pulses, and just pray they move the axis!  DAMN!

Lloyd

7

CamBam help (General usage) / 'Boning up' on 3D milling

« on: March 23, 2025, 11:57:34 am »

I've got a complex oval bowl to make from a rare hardwood -- the Sunuke (heartless) version of Iso No Ke.  I cannot afford to go out and buy an oval lathe-turning apparatus for a job I might do twice in a decade, and nobody around me has one.  So...

Fortunately, the wood is very-conducive to milling and routing.  It's dense, almost without any visible grain (except for elegant colorations), and doesn't splinter.  In fact, it may be finished with only fine sanding and buffing, without even wax!

So, I've got to re-learn everything I already forgot about how to both draw and machine 3D object/s.  The wood is terribly expensive, so I'll be doing a couple of dummy runs in cheaper woods, before I'll commit to the Iso No Ke.

This is for the base of a very attractive desk ornament, and the very plain base must be as elegant-looking in its simplicity and contours as the ornament is complex-looking.

8

Members Projects / Wow! Homemade 'machinable wax' is a dream!

« on: March 11, 2025, 21:11:21 pm »

Wow!  This new DIY 'machinable wax' cuts like a dream - dry!  I've cut about five pounds out of this block, and only lost about six ounces to errant chips.

It doesn't clog the bits, either.  It does 'fill' the flutes, but with a fluff that's as soft as a new-fallen snow, and it flings itself out at about 1000 rpm in little ribbons to be vacuumed-up.  I built a special 'wax catcher' for my shop-vac, and have caught just about all the chips.

I got the whole master mold machined today.

The mixture is (by weight) 3 parts refined paraffin and 1 part 3M 3764B hot-melt adhesive granules.  It takes a while to blend, and this mold master took over 25lb to cast, so it was a BIG pot of stuff! (It all has to be done in one melt, and one pour...)

Lloyd

9

CamBam help (General usage) / 'True' rounding-over of edges

« on: February 24, 2025, 20:10:39 pm »

I'm aware of the 'break edges' plugin, using vee-cutters.  Has anyone written a true rounding-over plugin using a ball-nose cutter to profile sharp edges to a radius, instead of a chamfer?

Thanks,
Lloyd

10

Members Projects / Auto-tracing a captured image

« on: January 03, 2025, 01:26:37 am »

This latest X-Acto blade holder project made me realize that I have no good way to capture the outline of a complex shape, and translate that into a CamBam drawing.

Do any of you have any favorite methods, like an auto-tracing algorithm, that would do that?

Lloyd

11

Members Projects / A really 'fun', tiny pocket

« on: December 31, 2024, 21:17:46 pm »

I'm making a precision blade-holder on a client's project for an X-Acto #11 blade, and need to mill a pocket in 6061 about 0.020" deep that retains the 'locater stud' all X-Acto blades have.  As such, the only endmill cutter I have that will fit between the stud and the edge of the blade is only 0.0625" in diameter.  And yes, it's an actual end mill, not a router bit.  They recommend 12K rpm and no deeper than 0.030" per pass at 10 ipm with flood for 6061.

That wouldn't be a problem at 12K rpm, but my mill won't go faster than 4200 rpm.  So BOY, and I going to have to cut gently and slowly!

I'm too tired this afternoon to be as attentive as I must be, so it'll wait until the New Year!

Happy New Year, ALL!

Lloyd

12

Members Projects / "Pick and hold" circuit

« on: June 10, 2024, 17:44:58 pm »

Modern small form-factor solenoid air valves (even name brands) seem not to be designed for better than 50% duty cycles.  They all tend to overheat, if held 'actuated' for longer than eight or ten minutes.  It's worse if ventilation is limited or ambient temperatures are high (say, "Florida").

Because the vendors cannot predict what will be the 'quiescent' state of a machine vs. the 'off' state, this just isn't right.  The coils won't last at elevated temperatures.  But there's a way to solve it simply.

It's called a 'pick and hold' circuit.  Basically, it's just an RC network that charges a capacitor large enough to 'pick' the solenoid, but then limits the applied voltage to a 'hold voltage' of (say) half of the solenoid's pick voltage rating.  All it requires is a careful selection of the limiting resistor's value and dissipation rating and the capacitor value, and a slow-enough cycle time so that the cap' has a chance to recharge between 'picks'.

For the ones I'm employing, their coil resistance is about 50 ohms, so a 56 ohm, 2-watt limit resistor with a 1000uf cap works fine.

I could do it with PWM with SSRs, but in this machine the solenoids were controlled by mechanical relays, and PWM'ing them would wear the relays out in a day or two, so the RC networks are the solution.  Simple stuff -- but you wish you didn't have to do it!

L

13

CamBam help (General usage) / I do not feel safe using the forum without a security certificate in place

« on: February 13, 2024, 21:15:46 pm »

When might we expect it to be renewed?
L
(Last post, until I see it renewed).

14

Members Machines / Hooray! Much-needed accessory in my shop!

« on: January 30, 2024, 21:13:29 pm »

I just wired and got working a new POE PTZ camera for my router bay.

The router bay is far enough from my office that I cannot clearly hear whether or not a machine is still cutting over the noise the vacuum blower and two large dust collectors make.  So, I decided to add a camera so I could monitor them visually from my office.

I ordered a camera from Hugolog.  AVOID this product!  It will ONLY work on a smart-phone, and has no working provisions for viewing on any PC.  They claim to have software to do it, but 1) it doesn't work, even on the versions of browsers and operating systems they claim, and 2) they want all sorts of personal and hazardous information like your personal passwords to your network and PC in order to enable it (I set up dummies for the tests).  I ended up sending the camera back for a refund.  It just won't work on anything but my phone.

Then I ordered an outdoor WIRED POE camera from Techage.  It worked perfectly on the first try.  It has automatic dim/night illumination, and PTZ controls from my web browser.

Now, I can monitor my machines in a little window on my PC desktop while I work!  Yippee!

Lloyd

15

CamBam help (General usage) / May 2024 be a year of renewal and reward!

« on: January 01, 2024, 18:44:44 pm »

Happy New Year to all my friends here.  I wish you all the best of fortunes in this year of renewal.

Lloyd